Here's what to expect when Oppo comes to Singapore

You might have heard of Oppo before. You've certainly heard about them here considering we reviewed their excellent N1. Well they’re finally coming to the little red dot and they're bringing with them the N1. We managed to corner their Singapore, Sean Deng, and got him to spill the beans on what we can expect from them once they set up shop here.

So finally Oppo is coming over to Singapore. What took you so long?

We’ve been planning to bring Oppo over here for quite a while now. In fact I personally thought about bringing the brand here into South East Asia way back in 2011. However we wanted to do it right. So we started out in Indonesia first in Dec 2012 and once we got a certain amount of success there, we decided to expand to Malaysia and Singapore, which is why you see us here now.

A rotating camera? Now who would have thought of that?

Actually, you have to thank our customers for that. The N1’s rotating camera was a result from feedback we got from our customers in China. We did a survey with around 2 million customers of ours back there and one persistent feedback we got was about the how bad the quality of the front facing cameras on most phones were. The general gist was, why does the front camera have to be of worse quality then the one at the back. It just makes taking selfies harder. That’s where we hit on the idea to make a rotating camera. So now, instead of relying on a lower performing camera for a selfie, you get one good camera that you can use for both normal and selfie shots.

So how often do you listen to your customers? We know a few companies that ought to do that more often if you know what we mean

We do it as often as we can. The rotating camera was just one example of it. The rear O-Touch panel of the N1 was also a result of customer feedback. It came about because customers were complaining that it was tough trying to take a selfie with a big phone and it required two hands. With the O-Touch panel, you can do it with just one that ended up being one of its major uses.

So 2 million customers gave their feedback to us and at the end of the day, they got to see their ideas and feedback being implemented into a phone we make. That’s how we like to get our customers involved with the brand.

Was the N1 the only one that got the benefit of customer feeback? Surely there's more?

Well there's also the Find 5 Mini. We added in improvements from the Find 5 based on customer needs. Battery life not good enough? We gave it a removable battery. The screen just doesn’t seem tough enough? We gave it a Gorilla glass screen. Too heavy? We found a way to lighten the weight.

We're not just producing phones so we can push out a certain number of models a year. We do it so we can meet the needs of our customers.